The Ada Initiative and Ally Skills

Oh what? You aren’t familiar with the Ada Initiative? You should be. They were one of the very few groups who lent us support back in the early days of THE GREAT SKEPTIC RIFT. Also known as, that one time, when we mentioned that there was a need for harassment policies at conferences.

While often privileged, mostly white, mostly male skeptics where screaming, “NOT ALL MAGICIANS!” and writing jingles with words that rhyme with, “hunt” the Ada Initiative was calmly documenting the situation. They provided free sample harassment and code of conduct policies and compiled the Stages of conference anti-harassment campaigns. It is fascinating to read. It’s like the stages of grief for groping. Have a look at the surprisingly accurate seven stages by clicking here.

The Ada Initiative has been very helpful and supportive over the years, not only for feminists in skeptic and atheist circles, but for women in technology in general.

In a nutshell, this is what they do:

The Ada Initiative supports women in open technology and culture through activities such as producing codes of conduct and anti-harassment policies, advocating for gender diversity, teaching ally skills, and hosting conferences for women in open tech/culture. Most of what we create is freely available, reusable, and modifiable under Creative Commons licenses.

This time of year the Ada Initiative does a fundraiser. We think they are worth supporting.

To sweeten the pot a little for our many friends and activists who read this blog and FtBlogs, the Ada Initiative is offering to organize a free workshop on Ally Skills training at SkeptiCon– the free skeptic conference in the Midwest. Nice! But even if you can’t make it to SkeptiCon, please read up about the Ada Initiative. They are really doing a lot of good for women in tech fields both online and off.

Stephanie Zvan has written a great post about the group if you would like to learn more. And if you donate to the Ada Initiative through our group link, you will get a cool sticker- but most importantly, you will help to educate current and future activists who aren’t afraid to use the F word.

Amy Davis Roth (aka Surly Amy) is a multimedia artist who resides in Los Angeles, California. She makes Surly-Ramics. She is the fearless leader of Mad Art Lab. Support her on Patreon. Follow her on twitter: @SurlyAmy or on Google+. Tip Jar is here.